The past couple of days, I had one of those character-building experiences where I was really thinking what I stood for and who I am. Sorta like an episode of a corny teenage tv series or something (can't think of an example, coz' I don't watch corny teenage tv series, except for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But since Buffy's a monster butt-kicking super heroine, it doesn't really apply to my life. :P).
Ok, the deal is that on Saturday, one of my girl friends called me up and asked me if we could meet up on the pretense of just wanting to catch up with me. I thought it was a bit unusual, coz' I wasn't never particularly close to her. But since my whole family was going out that night and I didn't really wanna eat by myself, I said ok. Later on, she mentioned taking me to a 'home party' after dinner and meeting some of her friends. I was wondering what the heck a home party was, and what it was for, and why on earth she was inviting me along when I didn't know any of her friends. But she just kept saying "Wait lah...It'll be good. It'll be fun." I even told her that I didn't want to go for it coz' I had to do my work and study for my exams, but she kept insisting I just go for a while. Later on, over dinner, she then told me it was a 'party' (without any food, by the way. Which to me, is not considered a party!) to promote some beauty products. As that point, I REALLY didn't want to go, and told her my grandma was home alone and I wanted to go home to take care of her (which was true)...yet she still insisted I went. And since she was the one who gave me the ride out, I didn't have much of a choice but to entertain her, so I very grudgingly went along.
She took me to this house at USJ9, where a bunch of girls were already there. The women who greeted me were all super friendly and after the usual introductions, said that the meeting was only for "leng lui's" (pretty girls). And some of them, when I shook hand with them, started doing some funny handshake with me, which I later found out was the handshake for members of this club of "leng lui's". Needless to say, at the time, I had no idea what the heck they were trying to do to my hand. Anyway, before the meeting got underway, some of the girls were showing us a whole photo album of 'before and after' pictures, of women who used to be 'fat' and then slimmed down. One of the girls there was gushing about how much weight she had lost, and that last time she was sooooo fat. When I saw her 'before' photo, I was like "What the heck???? That's supposed to be FAT???" coz' she looked even thinner than I am now!! I didn't even want to look at those ridiculous photos, but my supposed friend who dragged me there kept nudging me to look. At one point while we were chatting and joking and I was trying hard to be nice (just so not to be rude) my friend , who likes to hold my hand, which already makes me uncomfortable, suddenly gave me a slap on the butt, which made me REALLY uncomfortable. I wasn't so much embarassed, coz' I don't get embarassed so easily....but it's just something I think is very inappropriate. Hello? Guys slapping girls on the butt is disgusting. But GIRLS slapping girls on their butts...well...I don't even know what words can be used to describe it. Fortunately she didn't do it again, or else I would've given her a nice kick on her butt. But anyway, that's a sideline from the more annoying matter at hand.
Soon the 'meeting' began, and for the next hour or so, I had to sit through listening to a couple of the girls promoting this set of lingerie which supposedly shapes your body to the oh-so desirable female figure. They talked about how as we get older, everything on our bodies start to sag, and how typical lingerie doesn't support us so well, and how our fats can bulge out everywhere if we wear lingerie that's too tight...yadda yadda yadda bla bla bla. Then they talked about the miracle solution available though this amazing set of lingerie that shapes the female body so that fats go to the 'right' places, like the butt, instead of the hips, and the breasts instead of the arms. And if we used the lingerie together with a diet drink called Dr. Diet (along with a heap of dunno what other products), we'd really lose weight. If the door of the house was unlocked, I swear I would've bolted out the house as fast as I could. It felt like my brain cells were deteriorating at a rate faster than when I was watching Monty Python! I mean, there was this picture in the promotional book for the lingerie that showed a before and after photo of how a woman's waist became sooo slim after wearing the lingerie. The picture was soooo obviously fake, coz' it was the same picture modified to make the waist look slimmer!
Some things the girls said made me raise an eyebrow too. "Using this lingerie will raise your self-esteem when you get a better body!". "After you become slimmer using the lingerie and Dr. Diet, your personality will really shine!". Excuse me? Whoever said all people who are overweight have low self-esteem and have no personality? I probably have more self-esteem and personality than all you lame-O corny-handshake-loving geeks. It didn't help that everytime they talked about someone's success story and how much weight they lost, practically everyone in the room went "Whoaaaaa!!!!", like they just saw someone walking on water or something.
After they were done talking, and I was still wishing I'd rather be home studying, they plonked a set of lingerie on me and told me to try it. And to be polite again, I obliged (although I did quite a bit of quiet griping in the bathroom where I changed). After I had changed, one of the girls showed me how to put the lingerie on 'properly'. And to my surprise, when it was done, it actually did look really good. And it was at this point when Carol's brain stopped functioning properly, and I was actually thinking that it would be nice to have it for myself. Later on, I found out that, even when on discount, the price of the whole lingerie set with the Dr. Diet and a heap of other nonsense products was a jaw-dropping Rm2700 or so. I definitely would not have considered buying it if they had not then told me that if I introduce six other friends to the product and they buy it as well, the company will pay me back enough to pay for the whole set. Which means I would kind of get it for free! That further intrigued me. Then the lady who was explaining it to me didn't even bother to ask me if I wanted to buy. She just went straight into filling in the membership form form and writing out a receipt, so all I had to do was sign. And I was almost going to, until thankfully some of my brain cells started working again and I said I didn't want to commit to the whole set yet coz' I wanted to ask my parents first. That quite noticably put off the lady, who bug me a few more times to just buy it. But I was adamant that I had no right to sign it when first of all, I'm not working, and secondly, I have no credit card to pay off that money. So she was like ok, then, just sign up for the membership to the company. It costs Rm75 'only' and I get a years subcription to their magazine, plus a couple of their products for free. And once I'm a member, if I introduce people to the products, I can start earning money first and then decide later if I want to use it to buy the set. Which sounded like a better option to me, so I did sign for that. And since I didn't have enough money on me to pay the Rm75, I only paid Rm30 as a deposit first.
When we were done, one other lady there said "Welcome to the beauty club! You know, it's our responsibility to take care of our bodies, coz' no one else is going to to do it for us?". I just laughed. And when I was about to leave, the same lady who got me to sign up for membership taught me the meaning of their handshake. Each part of the handshake had a meaning, which I can't really remember, but it went something like "You're pretty, I'm pretty, We're all pretty girls!". Luckily my brain cells hadn't deteriorated enough to wish I had a puke bucket somewhere around me at that point.
When I got home, and talked to my mum about it, she helped me get my head back into gear by saying her friend who bought the same lingerie told her it didn't work at all. And when I thought about it, I figured, I'm still young and nothing on me is going to start sagging anytime soon. The lingerie only lasts two years, after which I'd have to get a new set. Why would I need something like that now? And with that Dr. Diet stuff, I had to replace proper meals with a drink of that everyday for a few weeks or so, eating only one real meal a day. Even that one meal has to be less than a certain amount of calories. Knowing myself, coz' I love food so much, I wouldn't be able to stand depriving myself of good food. And if I was going to deprive myself of food in the first place, why bother taking that drink, when I can replace real food with something else like fruits instead? When I was younger, I went on a diet where I replaced my dinner with fruits, and I lost weight pretty well from that. Why bother with this Dr. Diet, which costs SO much more?
And even if I still decided I wanted the set, to get it for 'free' I'd have to introduce some friends to it and convince them to buy. Not only is it troublesome and takes times, it's not ethical to me coz' I don't even know whether or not the stuff really works....if my friends buy it and it doesn't work for them, I'd lose their trust! I might even resort to sneak tactics like my 'friend' did...asking me out, pretending that I just wanna catch up with my friends and then ambush them with all this mind-numbing sales talk. No way man, I don't wanna end up duping my friends like that just so I can get what I want. And I certainly didn't want to associate myself with a bunch of people who say corny things like "Welcome to the beauty club!", or "This meeting is only for 'leng lui's!", or "You pretty, I pretty, We all be pretty together! Weeee!!!". Not only would I become anorexic from all the puking I'd be doing, but I'd be going around pretending to be friendly to people I barely know, when I know it's not sincere and I have ulterior motives behind my 'friendship'. Those girls said to me that being happy and less stressed help makes us beautiful...which is certainly true. But they also said if I come to more of their 'fun' meetings and make more friends, I'd be happier, less stressed, and hence, more beautiful. Haha, sorry ladies, but I'm plenty happy now with the friends I have who actually like me for who I am, and not because I can help them earn more points to buy more beauty products.
And another thing is that I know if I start with this, it's never gonna stop. They're gonna keep on asking me to go to their stupid meetings (with their stupid corny handshakes. ACK!!!) and buy more of their stupid products so make myself look more beaauuuutiful. Sooner or later, I'm gonna become obsessed with how good I look and just want to be thinner and prettier...and instead of building up my self-esteem, it would erode my self-esteem even more. I'd be constantly wondering, 'Am I think enough?', " Do I look good enough?", and if I don't look as good as I think I should, I'd end up feeling crappy about myself. Why would I wanna go through that when I'm perfectly happy with who I am now? Sure, I have a few extra kilos that I would like to shed, but my weight or my looks is not the centre of my world now, and I don't want to become obsessed with either. The Bible says do not have any other gods but worship only the Lord, your God. I do not want my physical appearance to become my obsession, or a 'god' to distract me from my one true God. Besides, I could put the money I'd use to buy those products into much better use, like tithes for the church or helping other people or something. Anyway, to me, the way a woman carries herself is way more important than her looks. If a girl has the perfect figure and looks, but constantly thinks she needs to look better and has low self-esteem, what's the blady point? I carry myself, and my few extra kilos, with confidence and joy, and that's MY beauty. And anyone who isn't gonna like me coz' of my weight simply isn't worth my time anyway. You can go around trying to please people by looking good, but I tell you what, I could look like a pimply whale and my God would still love me even if no one else does. And that's all that matters. Cheers. :)
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